History Main / ArchaeologicalArmsRace

* Like in [[Literature/{{Congo}} the source novel]], the protagonists of ''Film/{{Congo}}'' want to find the Lost City of Zinj because of the value of its diamonds for communications. But unlike in the novel, Karen builds a deadly laser with them.
* This is alluded to in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', since both the US government and the Nazis might want to use it as a weapon (although it's more of a powerful ''spiritual'' artifact than lost technology).

* ''Literature/{{Congo}}'': Two corporations try to reach a centuries-abandoned city in the African jungle because of a unique type of diamond found there, whose unique physical properties are valuable to build communications devices. The application of this "communications" to activating missile sites is directly addressed. Ironically, the kind of diamond they want is still common there because its color [[WorthlessYellowRocks wasn't]] valuable to the original inhabitants of the city.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': Archaeological sites can yield relics that provide powerful buffs to the empires that hold them, but excavating them requires an empire to directly control the system containing the site so wars often break out over systems with unexcavated sites.

* ''TabletopGame/MutantUA'', being set in a post-apocalyptic setting, has several stories and campaign books about technology from the "old times". Seeing as the main civilisation is somewhere in the age of steam, it's not surprising that something as simple as a bolt-action rifle, a battery-powered flashlight, or ''anything'' made out of plastic are seen as valuable artifacts worth mounting an expedition to find. And then there's the really valuable stuff, like laser rifles and power armor...

* In the setting of ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' this is part of the reason why so many people are on [[DeathWorld Pandora]]. Everyone is racing for control over the legendary Vaults, which hold various [[{{Precursors}} Eridian]] secrets, and in all of the games, the players are "Vault Hunters" who are trying to seize the priceless alien ruins. The Atlas corporation, in particular, owes much of its superiority to capturing and repurposing Eridian technology. Later on, the Hyperion corporation rises to prominence by exploiting the opening of a Vault to harvest the extremely valuable element Eridium, which began growing on Pandora after the events of [[VideoGame/Borderlands1 the first game]]. [[VideoGame/Borderlands2 The second game]] even has an outright arms race, as [[BigBad Handsome Jack]] is racing to unlock one particular Vault which houses [[{{Kaiju}} an ancient Eridian superweapon known as The Warrior]].

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%%If you have time, please take time to put examples in alphabetical order. This page Administrivia/HowToAlphabetizeThings should help you with that.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'' Eibon's Demon Tools and the process of "keep away from Kishin" involving them. Specifically B.R.E.W and the Book of Eibon, and with good reason, as B.R.E.W is whatever you desire it to be, and the Book of Eibon is a collection of magical and dangerous creatures that can be summoned at any time by the user and [[spoiler: actually IS Eibon himself at one point in the anime.]]
* ''[[Anime/SuperDimensionCenturyOrguss Orguss 02]]'' is driven by this trope, with two rival nations excavating the HumongousMecha from the original series and repairing them with Industrial-age weaponry. The plot thickens when [[GreyAndGrayMorality the country our protagonist isn't from]] excavates an ''extremely'' Humongous Mecha powerful enough to win the war singlehandedly.

* ''Manga/{{Spriggan}}'' centers on the pursuit of [=OOPArts=] (Out-Of-Place Artifacts), ancient Lost Technology with the potential to disrupt the balance of power or even destroy the world if misused. Many governments and organizations are willing to resort to extreme measures to secure or destroy these artifacts.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

*** During the Golden Age Diana accompanied the Holliday Girls on a couple of excursions that hoped to find magical or other useful items for the war effort during archaeological excavations.
*** Diana's Silver Age foe Osira was an evil AncientAstronauts the ancient Egyptians managed to seal, and then build a pyramid on top of. Once she escaped Osira and several heroes were in a bit of a race for what was left of her tech, with the heroes hoping to prevent her from getting to it.
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': The Amazons had to deal with a subset of American and other politicians treating Amazonian technology, especially their Purple Ray, as something they were entitled to. Treating the Amazons themselves as an outdated ancient relic from the past rather than an existing city state.

* Despite being set immediately AfterTheEnd, salvaged technology can shift the balance of power dramatically in ''FanFic/AgeOfStrife''. Much of Greengraft's supremacy came from it's early recovery of a universal assembly machine with weapon STC patterns in it.

-->'''Colonel Musgrove:''' What's that supposed to be coming out of there?
-->'''Indiana Jones:''' Lightning. Fire. The power of God or something.
-->'''Major Eaton:''' I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
-->'''Marcus Brody:''' The Bible speaks of the Ark laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it...is invincible.
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'': Red Skull unearths the Tesseract, the key to making super-powered weaponry, in an ancient Viking ruin. After finding it, he somewhat derisively implies that the Nazis are involved in similar searches.
--> '''Red Skull''': And the Fuhrer digs for trinkets in the desert.
* Like in the source novel, the protagonists of ''Film/{{Congo}}'' want to find the Lost City of Zinj because of the value of its diamonds for communications. But unlike in the novel, Karen builds a deadly laser with them.

* ''{{Literature/Congo}}'': Two corporations try to reach a centuries abandoned city in the African jungle because of an unique type of diamond found there, whose unique physical properties are valuable to build communications devices. The application of this "communications" to activating missile sites is directly addressed. Ironically, the kind of diamond they want is still common there because its color [[WorthlessYellowRocks wasn't]] valuable to the original inhabitants of the city.

* In David Barnett's Gideon Smith novels, young fisherman Gideon Smith and his band of misfits from a steampunk England are racing against the villains to go to Egypt and recover Apep, an ancient clockwork dragon made from brass and the ultimate Magitek weapon.
* The galactic war described in Creator/VladimirVasilyev's ''The Legacy of Giants'' and ''No One but Us'' involves an attempt to recover a cache of the {{Precursors}}' portals that can be used to transport entire armadas instantaneously (normal FTL travel is fast but far from instantaneous and can be detected far in advance of arrival - arriving ships leave an "imprint" in space). The duology is even called "The War for Mobility", as both sides realize that the more mobile side wins. In the end, the good side (the one with humans) ends up obtaining the portals and quickly figuring out how to use them to capture the "evil" side's Emperor, forcing their surrender.

* In {{Literature/Mortal Engines}}, as it is set in the future a long time after AfterTheEnd, when civilization has rebuilt, most of the weapons technology comes from archeologists find "Old Tech" knowlege or superweapons.
* A recurrent theme in some of Creator/PhilipKDick's short stories, with [[AfterTheEnd post war survivors]] whose lives are dependent on ancient or alien technology and in some cases the will and resourcefulness needed to acquire them.
* The city of Ambara Down and titular [[Literature/TheReclamationProject Reclamation Project]] fight over the lost technology of ancients, leftover after humans [[TheElitesJumpShip abandoned the surface of the Earth]] and left it to the [[FurryLens zoomorphs]].
* Deconstructed in the ''Literature/SchooledInMagic'' books by Creator/ChristopherNuttall. A mage attempts this and fails. As it turns out the ancient spells were clumsy and inefficient compared to the contemporary ones. In several of his [[WordOfGod Author's notes]] the author comments on the unlikelihood that ancient magical spells and/or objects would somehow be more powerful than those created by contemporary mages who have a longer history of experimentation to draw upon.
* ''Literature/{{Sepulchre}}'': On Sir Leonard Woolley's excavation near the city of Ur of the Sumerian Royal Cemetery, [[spoiler: Felix Kline]], by [[PsychicPowers natural psychic insight]], hastened to uncover [[spoiler: the preserved heart of incarnate Sumerian deity Bel-Marduk]], custody of which offers indefinite youth.
* Rivalry over long-dead races' LostTechnology creates conflict in Creator/LarryNiven's "Literature/TheSoftWeapon".

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': In ''Literature/TheCorellianTrilogy'', it's discovered that the entire Corellian star system was actually ''built'', using planetary repulser systems to move its five habitable planets into a single solar system, with Centerpoint Station as a hyperspace tractor -- the means to open a tunnel through hyperspace and pull them through. All of these can also be used as powerful weapons though, so the occupants of the planets have been searching for them in order to use them against their enemies.
* Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheTimeTraders'' revolved around a Cold War competition to recover lost alien tech.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' - the humans are one of the least-advanced major galactic powers, dependent at first upon the Centauri for access to hyperspace jumpgates and later the Narn for weapons to use against the Minbari, who outclass them by far. Even during the setting of the series proper humans are the only major power not to have developed artificial gravity (except for the Narn, who may just not care). In response, the humans formed [=InterPlanetary=] Expeditions (IPX), a corporation that funds archaeological expeditions to locate and exploit the technology of any dead alien races. Earth's major innovative weapons system, the Interceptor (designed to shoot down incoming energy weapons fire) is stated in expanded materials to be one such piece of reverse-engineered alien tech. [[spoiler: The main plot kicks off when an IPX survey reaches Z'ha'dum and awakens the Shadows.]]
** IPX [[NiceJobBreakingItHero really makes things go pear-shaped]] in the TV-movie ''Thirdspace'', in which a [[EldritchAbomination massive artifact]] [[SealedEvilInACan so dangerous]] even the ''Vorlons'' couldn't control is recovered and activated.

* ''Franchise/StargateVerse''

** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': This trope is turned on its side in that while the Atlantis Expedition are based in literally the most powerful and technologically advanced city in the Pegasus Galaxy[[note]]outside of Asuras, at least[[/note]], they have no means to access or power said technology due to the lack of Zero Point Modules, so much of the early seasons are spent exploring the galaxy and trying to find [=ZPMs=] to protect themselves against the Wraith. And any time they do gain access to some of the deeper levels of Atlantis's research labs, what they discover tends to be more dangerous than useful, since even by the standards of the ''Ancients'' the labs contain cutting-edge and exotic experiments.
*** Of note, while Earth already has access to multiple Daedalus-class battlecruisers throughout the series, they still can't stand toe-to-toe against Wraith Hive Ships, so much of the scavenging is also attempting to find Ancient weapons that can do the job, from caches of drones to entire Aurora-class warships. Of course, because of their limited understanding of Ancient technology, they can rarely ever operate said warships at their full potential any time they get their hands on one.

** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion "Contagion"]] has Picard and co travel to a planet in the Romulan Neutral Zone to find the homeworld of the legendary Iconians, a highly advanced (and defunct) civilization with the technology to teleport matter at interstellar ranges, allowing them to drop an army (or just a whole lot of explosives, biochemical agents, etc.) on any planet they chose any time they chose. Naturally the Romulans are none to pleased about this and set out to stop Star Fleet and gain any technology for themselves first.
** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E18TheChase "The Chase"]] features several factions - Federation, Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans - who are all after a DNA code left by Precursors. Said code has been broken into several pieces, with various pieces in the possession of each of the aforementioned factions. The Klingons, in particular, think it's a weapon, while the Cardassians think it will yield an unsurpassed power source. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a message to the Precursors' descendant species, talking about the commonality between them. Picard and the Romulan representative are receptive, the Klingons and Cardassians are not.]]

[[folder:Tabletop Game]]
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe, this is often the case when different factions in the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Imperium of Man]] (especially the [[MachineCult Adeptus Mechanicus]]) end up fighting each other, as they've become technologically backwards and most of their best technology is either relics they've dug up (or stolen from each other) or created by the few xenos they haven't killed on sight. The Mechanicus also bans innovation as heresy against the ancients, forcing them to obtain all tech from archaeological relics built during the [[FromCataclysmToMyth Dark Age of Technology]].
** Also occurs between species from time to time, particularly with ancient Necron/[[EldritchAbomination C'tan]] relics (often not known to be so by those trying to claim it). Particularly frequent with Orks, who will happily try to salvage and use anything regardless of who made it, what it's supposed to do or how dangerous it might be.
* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', the SchizoTech is the result of multiple interstellar wars clubbing the Inner Sphere as a whole back a century or so technologically -- often ''purposefully'', as research and industrial sites were prime targets in the First Succession War. Afterwards, everyone realized that a ''lot'' of what was once common technology had become irreplacable [[LostTechnology LosTech]], and by the time of the Second Succession War began preservation of science and industrial sites were part and parcel of the [[FictionalGenevaConventions Ares Conventions]]. This also means that many of the "supernatural" Franchise/IndianaJones tropes expected of an Archaeological Arms Race were in full effect; the only [[LostTechnology Lostech]] caches remaining were ones with some fairly dangerous security measures(In the 2018 game, a cache was protected by [[spoiler:an ''artificially intelligent computer virus'']]). [=ComStar=] had a debatable effect on all of this; they maintained the faster-than-light communication networks, along with interstellar civilization in general... but they also secretly monopolized their technological edge by destroying everyone else's research sites and killing every cutting-edge scientist who wouldn't join them. This era came to an end after the Third Succession War -- much of which was fought ''over'' lostech caches -- when the Gray Death Legion mercenaries discovered the Helm Memory Core, a near-complete set of lostech schematics which they chose to spread through the Inner Sphere despite the efforts of [=ComStar=]. Meanwhile, the Clans who left the Inner Sphere at the start of the Succession Wars not only maintained their level of technology, but actually improved on it, making a Clan 'Mech of a given weight worth, in general, one and half Inner Sphere 'Mechs of the same weight.
* {{Implied|Trope}} in ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}''. Several countries are gearing up for war and there are a great deal of powerful magical artifacts to uncover. Whether the trope is played straight is up the DM, of course.
** ''The Forge of War'', a sourcebook dealing with the Last War, explicitly suggests this as a basis for adventurer involvement in said war.

* In the final days of the TabletopGame/{{Alternity}} TabletopGame/StarDrive setting, the Galactic Concord and allies faced off against the Exeat. Each side tried to dig up artifacts left by various Precursors to use against each other. In the Battle of Aegis, [[spoiler: the Exeat displayed such a weapon. It hit hard.]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': All types of Exalts are in a race to unearth ancient Solar superweapons (and there are TONS of them), with the ones coming ahead being the Houses of the Dragon-Blooded, ready to use them in the inevitable civil war. The only ones who aren't in the race are Sidereals, whose interest is in [[InvertedTrope keeping the artifacts buried.]]
** In the Infernal sourcebook, Captain Gyrfalcon is seen with possession of [[FantasticNuke Thousand-Forged Dragon]]. He's understandably proud of himself.
* The world of TabletopGame/SeventhSea is littered with Syrneth artifacts, remnants of previous non-human civilizations on Theah. Major nations and secret societies come into conflict over the most powerful ones.
* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' Ancient Martian artefacts are constantly being fought over for their technological value.
* The entire basis of ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}''. The game is set in the Ninth World, a billion or so years into the future of Earth after eight previous civilisations have risen to technology levels ranging from near future to SufficientlyAdvanced, before falling again for unknown reasons. The titular numenera are the leftovers of these previous worlds, ranging from obviously technological devices to swarms of nanobots to things that appear outright magical - the setting makes heavy use of ClarkesThirdLaw and can be treated as anything from hard sci-fi to high fantasy.
* ''MutantUA'', being set in a post-apocalyptic setting, has several stories and campaign books about technology from the "old times". Seeing as the main civilisation is somewhere in the age of steam, it's not surprising that something as simple as a bolt-action rifle, a battery-powered flashlight, or ''anything'' made out of plastic are seen as valuable artifacts worth mounting an expedition to find. And then there's the really valuable stuff, like laser rifles and power armor...

* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' has had a few of those happen in the backstory, with the clear winners in North America being the [[FantasticRacism human supremacist]], {{anti magic|faction}} Coalition States and Free Quebec, and to a lesser degree [[OneNationUnderCopyright Ishpeming]] AKA [[ArmsDealer Northern Gun]], who managed to unearth, refurbish and reproduce several pre-rifts technologies. Seriously {{downplayed}} by the setting's "modern" time, however, as while finding a cache of ancient high-tech toys might make you rich and/or [[NormalFishInATinyPond a local bigwig]], you most likely won't matter much to the current great or even medium powers, who either managed to mostly regain humanity's old tech level, never lost it in the first place, or never needed it due to having an equivalent - usually supernatural power or alien tech (or in some rare cases both).

[[folder:Video Game]]
* ''ArmageddonEmpires'', the post-apocalyptic strategy/card game. While all the factions are capable of researching new technology, most games also feature at least a few special tiles where you can dig up unique (and powerful) units, weapon systems, enhancements, and other goodies to unleash against your enemies.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ascendancy}}'': A good number of planets feature ruin tiles that can be excavated, resulting in a random tech from the research tree. This can be anything from a tech you would've discovered the next turn from normal research to endgame tech that could give you a massive advantage. It normally takes 50 turns (25 if colony base is built on a red square) to build a dig site on a newly-colonized world.
* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'': Part of the franchise's overarching plot is the race to find [[LostTechnology artifacts]] left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} First Civilization]], such as the Apples of Eden. By the present-day, the Templars are winning with the Assassins playing catch-up.
* ''Videogame/Aurora4X'': Xenological excavations are a steady and relatively safe source of applied technology... Just remember to bring a competent military unit with you.
* ''Videogame/{{Borderlands}}'': In the franchise's setting, this is part of the reason why so many people are on [[DeathWorld Pandora]]. Everyone is racing for control over the legendary Vaults, which hold various [[{{Precursors}} Eridian]] secrets, and in all of the games, the players are "Vault Hunters" who are trying to seize the priceless alien ruins. The Atlas corporation, in particular, owes much of its superiority to capturing and repurposing Eridian technology. Later on, the Hyperion corporation rises to prominence by exploiting the opening of a Vault to harvest the extremely valuable element Eridium, which began growing on Pandora after the events of the first game. The second game even has an outright arms race, as [[BigBad Handsome Jack]] is racing to unlock one particular Vault which houses [[{{Kaiju}} an ancient Eridian superweapon known as The Warrior]].

** Then there's the so-called Goody Huts. In most versions of ''Civilization'', these are small tribal villages that you can visit and which might attack you or give a small gift such as money, weapons, technology, or knowledge of local terrain. Finding them can be a major contributor to an early-game advantage, especially if you get a few free techs or level up your scouts. In ''V'', there are only ruins, which become the aforementioned antiquity sites. The first civ to explore one of these always gets a bonus of some kind.
*** Depending on the edition of the game, goody huts can give a technological bonus, no matter which era you find them in. This can lead to late-game explorers finding isolated villages which teach them the ancient secrets of rocketry or nanotechnology.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'': The games evoked this trope, as the Brotherhood of Steel is sometimes depicted as going to any length to secure pre-war weapon technology. Most such technology is found in Vaults, since everywhere else is a ScavengerWorld.

** ''VideoGAme/FalloutNewVegas'' was particularly blatant about this, featuring a power plant called "HELIOS One" which fanatical former Brotherhood Elder Elijah (hoping to dig up an ancient weapon system) defended to the bitter end, refusing to abandon the site despite his forces being massively outnumbered by the NCR even with their technological superiority. The worst part is he was [[spoiler:[[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Archimedes_II absolutely right]]]]. However, he wasn't [[spoiler: completely right]] as HELIOS One was damaged after the Great War, various programs left behind in the terminals further reduce the energy production of the plant, and [[spoiler: a small boy uses [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Euclid%27s_C-Finder the trigger]] as a toy ray gun.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': Throughout the franchise, the theocratic Covenant is constantly searching for technology and structures left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]]. However, their [[ScaryDogmaticAliens religious fervour]] means that the Covies consider all Forerunner tech to be holy relics, to the point where any attempt to even just better understand said techology, much less actually improve on it, runs the risk of being considered heresy. The result is that Covenant technology is inferior to the Forerunner originals, though still somewhat better than what humanity has. When humanity gets forced to fight a HopelessWar against the Covenant, the UNSC (secretly) throws more and more of its researchers at the few Forerunner archaeological sites it has. In fact, ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' starts with the ''Pillar of Autumn'' warp-jumping to one of the titular Forerunner installations in order to lure the Covenant away from Earth, with Cortana having secretly used Forerunner navigational coordinates in the hopes that they would point humanity to a potential game-changer against the Covenant.

* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': A one-sided version. Ruins of the Metal World dot the landscape, but most of the artifacts within are either useless or junk--some of the most valuable things you can scavenge are old coffee mugs. The Eclipse cult, however, have somehow found a way to revive ancient machines buried beneath the ground, different from the normal MechanicalLifeforms that form a part of the world's ecosystem. These strange machines are not only exceedingly deadly on their own, but they can corrupt other machines to serve them. Higher-ranking eclipse often have scavenged guns collected from those machines. As it turns out, [[spoiler:these are the machines that originally destroyed the world, consuming biomass to make more of themselves. After every living thing was dead, they went into hibernation, and a terraforming AI named GAIA was able to calculate the shutdown codes to put them down for good, then rebuild the biosphere from scratch. But an OutsideContextProblem managed to hack GAIA, driving her subroutines sapient and turning them into rogue gods; HADES has recruited the Eclipse to build an army to destroy the world again, while HAPHAESTUS overclocked machine production to slaughter the human race into submission]].

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Technology from the Protheans, the civilization that ruled the galaxy 50,000 years before the present day, is in massive demand and every galactic civilization tries to get as much as they possibly can. Once the Reapers are revealed, collecting ''their'' technology (which is actually what the Protheans' tech was based on) becomes even more important due to the need to find effective ways to fight them, though as Reaper tech is designed to have the side effect of BrainWashing anyone who gets near it into worshiping the Reapers it's a double-edged sword.

* ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon'': In the franchise's setting, several factions are after technology left behind by [[{{Precursors}} the Ancients]], generally for this purpose:

* ''VideoGame/{{Relic Of War}}'': This RTS flash game is based around this, with the Nazis discovering an AncientArtifact and using it for taking an advantage in an alternative timeline WWII developing new technologies (the allies do the same later on)

* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'': Mysterious monoliths, artifacts and other leftovers from the [[{{Precursors}} creators of Planet]] are scattered around the terrain and can boost scientific research of the colonist group who finds them first. Meanwhile, the alien factions have to slowly rediscover [[LostTechnology technology lost]] when their ships crashed on the surface after a firefight.
** Additionally, the ExpansionPack adds the ''Unity'' crash site, exploring which can get you a free unit or two.
** The SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' features this as well. You can explore both alien and human ruins (yours is the first ''successful'' expedition to the planet), [[SandWorm Siege Worm]] remains, crashed satellites, as well as supply pods sent ahead of the expedition. ''Rising Tide'' is set to built on this feature with the addition of relics, pieces of old Earth or alien technology which can provide nice boosts to your civ on their own, but often some in sets, and when collected together, grant your faction even more powerful bonuses as well as entirely new perks and buildings - provided you manage to find the other pieces before some other civ does.
* ''Videogame/StarRuler'': The ''Galactic Armory'' mod adds a slew of ancient superweapons, megastructures, and perfectly terraformed planets from the Remnant's long-gone empire. [[PortalNetwork Warp gates]], shield sapping generators, [[StarKilling starkilling cannons]], et cetera. Players will need to scramble in order to claim them [[BoardingParty or capture them from other players]]. Of course, the players will also need to battle their way past the AI ships that still guard said superweapons, and it's no easy task when the [[HigherTechSpecies Remnants have antimatter engines and phased railguns when the players are still putting along on solid-fuel rockets]]. Remnant superweapons are not critical to winning a game, but can provide a decisive advantage, especially if the other players begin to edge ahead of you in research.
* ''Videogame/StarRuler2'': Remnant artifacts dot the galaxy and come in many flavors. They range in use from totally peaceful like the stellar-scale telescope, to unstoppable juggernauts of war like the Revenant - the flagship of the Remnant fleet - which is so powerful that it must be assembled by collecting its scattered parts. Artifacts require Energy to power up, and can be activated by anyone controlling the artifact's solar system. A diplomatic action can be initiated to claim artifacts and move them to your own systems. Unknown, neutral Seed starships fly through the galaxy, slowly replenishing the supply of artifacts.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'': This tends to be all over the place, with the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis']] discoveries ranging from [[{{Ghostapo}} supernatural]] to [[LostTechnology ancient]] [[StupidJetpackHitler tech-based discoveries.]] In the series reboot, VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, the BigBad, Deathshead manages to allow them to win the war through reversed engineered LostTechnology.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has this pop up from time to time, usually centered on Titan technology. The most prominent example was Garrosh Hellscream excavating in Pandaria to find the heart of an Old God and the ensuing battle to stop him before he could completely master its power.
** This turned up again in ''Warlords of Draenor'', where the ogre Gorian Empire was scouring Draenor for titan artifacts and relics of past civilizations to give them more of an advantage, while the Alliance and Horde competed for their own artifact on an old ogre island. As it turns out, the ogre empire was already so diminished that none of it mattered, and the most powerful artifact they found was hijacked by one of their own who they led to betraying them. Meanwhile, the Alliance and Horde competition ended up largely irrelevant as its existence to begin with was mostly an ExcusePlot for a [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] zone.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

%% * ''Webcomic/TheHuntersOfSalamanstra'' is about the titular fallen country, completely ruined after their magical superweapon backfired and opened portals to eldritch worlds, saturating the borders in eldritch beasts. Over the decades, multiple surrounding countries have sent mercenary guilds "to protect their homelands and make a profit doing so", but it's a clearly flimsy excuse. In addition to the ancient magical artifacts that become game-breakers in a magic-restricted world, many of these artifacts have synthesized and forced adaption in the eldritch beasts, creating an arms race between nations to see who can create / reverse-engineer the greatest monster.

* The second season of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' has the Autobots and Decepticons racing each other to retrieve the Iacon Relics - Cybertronian LostTechnology which was scattered across Earth for safekeeping. Some of the Relics are full-on magical artifacts - Everyone treats the supposed origin story of the Forge of Solus Prime (a forge used by a major religious figure) as true, and it can create things that normally cannot be made, such as artificial T-Cogs.

** It's somewhat [[{{DownplayedTrope}} downplayed]] - the Nazis were [[{{ThoseWackyNazis}} quite...wacky]] in much more serious, [[{{UsefulNotes/WorldWarII}} darker]] and [[{{UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust}} frankly horrifying]] ways, but their supposed penchant for occult mumbo-jumbo is inflated quite a bit in pop culture. The SS was particulary susceptible to it, as Himmler, its founder and leader, had been intensely interested in mysticism and occultism all his life, but even in the SS, it was restricted to parts of the higher officer corps and some weird offshoots such as the aforementioned Ahnenerbe. The Nazi party itself did make conscious use of (perverted) Myth/NorseMythology symbolism, but most leading figures of it could not have cared less about spiritual beliefs and mysticism, much less the resolutely secular and pragmatic (where that point is concerned, at least) Wehrmacht high command. And that's not even to mention the general civilian population as such, which by and large couldn't have cared less about Black Suns, Nordic prehistoric Supermen or expeditions to find some mythological trinket or other - which did indeed occur, but the funding for which had always been minuscule and was cut completely as the war progressed. The RealLife Nazis in general were much more banal and ordinary than in nearly all fictional representations, which only makes their actual deeds seem more horrifying.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'': There's a lot of this going on. Several Earth factions are desperate to get their hands on ''any'' alien technology in order to gain a political edge and also ensure survival against the Goa'uld threat. Meanwhile, all of the galactic factions (including Stargate Command) are scrambling to find any [[{{Precursors}} Ancient]] technology that might be left behind.
** Played with by the fact that the dominant galactic power at the time the series begins, the Goa'uld, are scavengers by nature; virtually all of their technology, such as optical computers and even the Stargate, has been either found, stolen from someone else, or reverse engineered. This puts them at a disadvantage against more innovative species. But it also means that the handful of times the Goa'uld actually develop something new on their own, it tends to be ''extremely'' dangerous.

* Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheTimeTraders'' revolved around a Cold War competition to recover lost alien tech.
* A recurrent theme in some of Creator/PhilipKDick's short stories, with [[AfterTheEnd post war survivors]] whose lives are dependent on ancient or alien technology and in some cases the will and resourcefulness needed to acquire them.

* Rivalry over long-dead races' LostTechnology creates conflict in Creator/LarryNiven's "Literature/TheSoftWeapon".

* In ''Literature/TheStand'', the good guys' main concern (once they've begun to rebuild, at least) is taking care of [[BigBad Randall Flagg]] before he starts utilizing all the old military weapons and equipment that are free for the taking now that ThePlague has wiped out most of humanity. Flagg's minion Trashcan Man is particularly adept at finding these new toys and getting them in working order.

* In David Barnett's Gideon Smith novels, young fisherman Gideon Smith and his band of misfits from a steampunk England are racing against the villains to go to Egypt and recover Apep, an ancient clockwork dragon made from brass and the ultimate Magitek weapon.

* {{Defied|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheFifthSeason'' by the Sanze Empire: although the continent is dotted with incomprehensible relics of long-dead civilizations, the Empire's official policy is that if they didn't save those civilizations, they're of no use in the present day. [[spoiler:This turns out to be a deliberate misdirection, since the most visible of those relics are part of a planet-spanning AmplifierArtifact of potentially apocalyptic power.]]
* ''{{Literature/Congo}}'': Two corporations try to reach a centuries abandoned city in the African jungle because of an unique type of diamond found there, whose unique physical properties are valuable to build communications devices. The application of this "communications" to activating missile sites is directly addressed. Ironically, the kind of diamond they want is still common there because its color [[WorthlessYellowRocks wasn't]] valuable to the original inhabitants of the city.
* The "Mazeheart Object" of ''Literature/MoltBrother'' is a mythical artifact leftover from a previous civilization rumored to reveal the secrets of a form of mind-control. It's not just archaeologists Arshel and Dennis who are after the thing for its cultural value -- every political faction in the Hundred Planets is willing to kill for information leading to the whereabouts of the artifact.
* The city of Ambara Down and titular [[Literature/TheReclamationProject Reclamation Project]] fight over the lost technology of ancients, leftover after humans [[TheElitesJumpShip abandoned the surface of the Earth]] and left it to the [[FurryLens zoomorphs]].
* ''Literature/{{Sepulchre}}'': On Sir Leonard Woolley's excavation near the city of Ur of the Sumerian Royal Cemetery, [[spoiler: Felix Kline]], by [[PsychicPowers natural psychic insight]], hastened to uncover [[spoiler: the preserved heart of incarnate Sumerian deity Bel-Marduk]], custody of which offers indefinite youth.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': In ''Literature/TheCorellianTrilogy'', it's discovered that the entire Corellian star system was actually ''built'', using planetary repulser systems to move its five habitable planets into a single solar system, with Centerpoint Station as a hyperspace tractor -- the means to open a tunnel through hyperspace and pull them through. All of these can also be used as powerful weapons though, so the occupants of the planets have been searching for them in order to use them against their enemies.

[[folder:Live Action Television]]

** It's somewhat [[{{DownplayedTrope}} downplayed]] - the Nazis were [[{{ThoseWackyNazis}} quite...wacky]] in much more serious, [[{{UsefulNotes/WorldWarII}} darker]] and [[{{UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust}} frankly horrifying]] ways, but their supposed penchant for occult mumbo-jumbo is inflated quite a bit in pop culture. The SS was particulary susceptible to it, as Himmler, its founder and leader, had been intensely interested in mysticism and occultism all his life, but even in the SS, it was restricted to parts of the higher officer corps and some weird offshoots such as the aforementioned Ahnenerbe. The Nazi party itself did make conscious use of (perverted) Myth/NorseMythology symbolism, but most leading figures of it could have cared less about spiritual beliefs and mysticism, much less the resolutely secular and pragmatic (where that point is concerned, at least) Wehrmacht high command. And that's not even to mention the general civilian population as such, which by and large couldn't have cared less about Black Suns, Nordic prehistoric Supermen or expeditions to find some mythological trinket or other - which did indeed occur, but the funding for which had always been minuscule and was cut completely as the war progressed. The RealLife Nazis in general were much more banal and ordinary than in nearly all fictional representations, which only makes their actual deeds seem more horrifying.

* Like in the source novel, the protagonists of ''{{Film/Congo}}'' want to find the Lost City of Zinj because of the value of its diamonds for communications. But unlike in the novel, Karen builds a deadly laser with them.
** a Notable playing with of the trope in both iterations of the story, the people of Zinj were not particularly more advanced in technology than their contemporaries, the diamonds were just a trade item for them. Their use in high technology is something discovered later. In novel, the diamonds of real value to the explorers were the off-color rejects the people of Zinj threw away.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': The Orokin left behind many artifacts which three of the major factions in the setting are all hunting for to get an upper hand in the conflict. [[PlayerCharacter The Tenno]] in particular are basing a lot of their gear on what they've used during [[GreatOffscreenWar the Old War]]; their game-changing technologies such as [[JetPack archwings]] (the first one only) and [[CoolSpaceship railjacks]] are earned respectively through excavation missions and and scavenging parts scattered around the Origin System, with the upgrades for the latter gained by repairing wreckage rewarded from railjack missions.

* The second season of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' has the Autobots and Decepticons racing each other to retrieve the Iacon Relics - Cybertronian LostTechnology which was scattered across Earth for safekeeping. Some of the Relics are full-on magical artifacts - Everyone treats the supposed origin story of the Forge of Solus Prime (a forge used by a major religious figure) as true, and it can create this that normally cannot be made, such as artificial T-Cogs.

* ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'' has the Ruins, seven enormous abandoned structures containing advanced technology such as [[PoweredArmor Drag-Rides]]. All of the countries devote effort to exploring the Ruins, to the point of holding competitions to win the rights to explore them.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' Throughout the franchise, the theocratic Covenant is constantly searching for technology and structures left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]]. However, their [[ScaryDogmaticAliens religious fervour]] means that the Covies consider all Forerunner tech to be holy relics, to the point where any attempt to even just better understand said techology, much less actually improve on it, runs the risk of being considered heresy. The result is that Covenant technology is inferior to the Forerunner originals, though still somewhat better than what humanity has. When humanity gets forced to fight a HopelessWar against the Covenant, the UNSC (secretly) throws more and more of its researchers at the few Forerunner archaeological sites it has. In fact, ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' starts with the ''Pillar of Autumn'' warp-jumping to one of the titular Forerunner installations in order to lure the Covenant away from Earth, with Cortana having secretly used Forerunner navigational coordinates in the hopes that they would point humanity to a potential game-changer against the Covenant.

* VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}: This tends to be all over the place, with the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis']] discoveries ranging from [[{{Ghostapo}} supernatural]] to [[LostTechnology ancient]] [[StupidJetpackHitler tech-based discoveries.]] In the series reboot, VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, the BigBad, Deathshead manages to allow them to win the war through reversed engineered LostTechnology.

* In ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' mysterious monoliths, artifacts and other leftovers from the [[{{Precursors}} creators of Planet]] are scattered around the terrain and can boost scientific research of the colonist group who finds them first. Meanwhile, the alien factions have to slowly rediscover [[LostTechnology technology lost]] when their ships crashed on the surface after a firefight.
** Additionally, the ExpansionPack adds the ''Unity'' crash site, exploring which can get you a free unit or two.
** The SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' features this as well. You can explore both alien and human ruins (yours is the first ''successful'' expedition to the planet), [[SandWorm Siege Worm]] remains, crashed satellites, as well as supply pods sent ahead of the expedition. ''Rising Tide'' is set to built on this feature with the addition of relics, pieces of old Earth or alien technology which can provide nice boosts to your civ on their own, but often some in sets, and when collected together, grant your faction even more powerful bonuses as well as entirely new perks and buildings - provided you manage to find the other pieces before some other civ does.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkColony'' the race begins when the humans and Taar realize there are riches to be had by excavating Martian ruins. The ultimate prize is an engine of war that can single handedly wipe the enemy off the face of the planet.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' universe, the theocratic Covenant is constantly searching for technology and structures left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]]. However, their [[ScaryDogmaticAliens religious fervour]] means that the Covies consider all Forerunner tech to be holy relics, to the point where any attempt to even just better understand said techology, much less actually improve on it, runs the risk of being considered heresy. The result is that Covenant technology is inferior to the Forerunner originals, though still somewhat better than what humanity has. When humanity gets forced to fight a HopelessWar against the Covenant, the UNSC (secretly) throws more and more of its researchers at the few Forerunner archaeological sites it has. In fact, ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' starts with the ''Pillar of Autumn'' warp-jumping to one of the titular Forerunner installations in order to lure the Covenant away from Earth, with Cortana having secretly used Forerunner navigational coordinates in the hopes that they would point humanity to a potential game-changer against the Covenant.
** Humanity is more willing to properly reverse-engineer what they can find, but most of the war-era technology they can put into the field is based on stolen Covenant knock-offs, partly because the Covenant own more archaeological sites, but also because genuine Forerunner tech is even more difficult to figure out. Still, the UNSC is more willing to improve on Covenant technology if they can, with Spartan MJOLNIR armor being superior to standard-issue Elite power armor (though the Covenant were far better able to mass-produce their own stuff during the war).
** In ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'', Cortana hijacks a Covenant carrier and discovers that its plasma cannon firmware is an absolute mess. She re-writes it in the middle of a space battle to convert its inefficient plasma torpedoes into even more powerful and precise ion beams, then proceeds to tear apart several Covenant capital ships. While doing so, a Covenant AI jumps out and calls her a heretic for altering "holy relics". Yes, they deliberately stunt their [=AIs=] with the same religious restrictions.
** By the time of ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', humans has closed much of the gap with what's left of the Covenant in the Forerunner arms race, in part due to them acquiring both their own Forerunner shield world in Onyx/Trevelyan plus a number of [[GadgeteerGenius Engineer/Huragok]] defectors, and also because the vast majority of the Covenant's species had their own scientific skills deliberately limited by their now all-but-extinct Prophets (though supplemental materials indicate that at least a few post-Covenant factions have managed to recover a lot of their previously suppressed technical skills). Subsequently, the struggle between the UNSC and the more hostile Covenant remnants over Forerunner sites has become a major source of conflict, as seen ''Halo 4'''s ''Spartan Ops'', 'VideoGame/HaloSpartanAssault'', and various other media.
*** Case in point: the most advanced UNSC ship, the ''Infinity'', was augmented with reverse-engineered Covenant and Forerunner tech (with the help of Huragok recovered from Trevelyan); and can outgun almost anything produced by post-Covenant shipyards.
*** The post-war period also gives us a nice subversion; the UNSC and the more friendly post-Covenant factions, namely the Swords of Sanghelios, have actually been cooperating on a number of technological projects, including those pertaining to the Forerunners.
* The entire conflict in ''VideoGame/MetalFatigue'' is based on three brothers working for their [[HumongousMecha Combot]] building family business discovering alien technology, setting off a war between it and two other companies (one of which each of the brothers ends up working for). Naturally the best way to get the best parts is to find said alien technology (as well as stealing parts you've blased off enemy combots).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', most of the best [[HumongousMecha Gears]] used in the war between Aveh and Kislev are dug up relics from previous wars, not newly manufactured. This naturally leads to conflicts over the best salvage sites.
* Part of the setting of ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoon''. Several factions are after technology left behind by [[{{Precursors}} the Ancients]], generally for this purpose:
** TheEmpire is the largest and most notable of these factions. They were originally formed to try and help better society with the technology, but by the time the games take place, they have become corrupt.
** In ''VideoGame/PanzerDragoonSaga'', the Black Fleet (some of the Empire's most elite forces) defect, and claim a specific artifact (the woman Azel) to keep the Emperor's ambitions in check.
** Another notable faction is the secretive group known as the Seekers. Commonly thought to be nothing more than outlandish tomb raiders, their goal is to use Ancient technology to help humanity reclaim the world from the various monsters and hazards. They are at odds with the Empire at the point the games take place, despite some initial common ground.
* In ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', this is how strategic cruisers were developed by the four empires. Thanks to the [[BlackBox black boxing]] used in their construction, for a while it was necessary for player alliances to control wormhole systems and the archaeological sites within them in order to build strategic cruisers. Now it is possible to find relic sites in high-sec, but the wormhole sites are still much more productive.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games evoked this trope, as the Brotherhood of Steel is sometimes depicted as going to any length to secure pre-war weapon technology. Most such technology is found in Vaults, since everywhere else is a ScavengerWorld.
** [[VideoGame/Fallout1 The first game]] featured a nuke which you could use to skip the endgame boss fight.
** In [[VideoGame/Fallout2 the second game]], the Enclave has access to enough fossil fuel to manage a small army, complete with helicopters due to having total control of the last oil rig in the entire world. This made them more powerful than the Brotherhood of Steel, and they could curb stomp any faction in the Wasteland. They also have a strain of the Forced Evolutionary Virus that would allow them to kill off anyone and everyone via massive hemorrhaging and inflammations before finally dying after an hour of torture.
** In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' the Brotherhood one-upped the Enclave by not only stealing their resources after beating them in the Brotherhood-Enclave War, but also salvaging a HumongousMecha built by the U.S. government during the Battle of Anchorage.
** ''VideoGAme/FalloutNewVegas'' was particularly blatant about this, featuring a power plant called "HELIOS One" which fanatical former Brotherhood Elder Elijah (hoping to dig up an ancient weapon system) defended to the bitter end, refusing to abandon the site despite his forces being massively outnumbered by the NCR even with their technological superiority. The worst part is he was [[spoiler:[[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Archimedes_II absolutely right]]]]. However, he wasn't [[spoiler: completely right]] as HELIOS One was damaged after the Great War, various programs left behind in the terminals further reduce the energy production of the plant, and [[spoiler: a small boy uses [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Euclid%27s_C-Finder the trigger]] as a toy ray gun.]]

* The RTS flash game ''VideoGame/{{Relic Of War}}'' is based around this, with the Nazis discovering an AncientArtifact and using it for taking an advantage in an alternative timeline WWII developing new technologies (the allies do the same later on)
* The ''Galactic Armory'' mod for ''Videogame/StarRuler'' adds a slew of ancient superweapons, megastructures, and perfectly terraformed planets from the Remnant's long-gone empire. [[PortalNetwork Warp gates]], shield sapping generators, [[StarKilling starkilling cannons]], et cetera. Players will need to scramble in order to claim them [[BoardingParty or capture them from other players]]. Of course, the players will also need to battle their way past the AI ships that still guard said superweapons, and it's no easy task when the [[HigherTechSpecies Remnants have antimatter engines and phased railguns when the players are still putting along on solid-fuel rockets]]. Remnant superweapons are not critical to winning a game, but can provide a decisive advantage, especially if the other players begin to edge ahead of you in research.
* In ''Videogame/StarRuler2'', Remnant artifacts dot the galaxy and come in many flavors. They range in use from totally peaceful like the stellar-scale telescope, to unstoppable juggernauts of war like the Revenant - the flagship of the Remnant fleet - which is so powerful that it must be assembled by collecting its scattered parts. Artifacts require Energy to power up, and can be activated by anyone controlling the artifact's solar system. A diplomatic action can be initiated to claim artifacts and move them to your own systems. Unknown, neutral Seed starships fly through the galaxy, slowly replenishing the supply of artifacts.
* A good number of planets in ''VideoGame/{{Ascendancy}}'' feature ruin tiles that can be excavated, resulting in a random tech from the research tree. This can be anything from a tech you would've discovered the next turn from normal research to endgame tech that could give you a massive advantage. It normally takes 50 turns (25 if colony base is built on a red square) to build a dig site on a newly-colonized world.

* In ''Videogame/Aurora4X'', xenological excavations are a steady and relatively safe source of applied technology... Just remember to bring a competent military unit with you.
* Part of the overarching plot of ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' is the race to find [[LostTechnology artifacts]] left behind by the [[{{Precursors}} First Civilization]], such as the Apples of Eden. By the present-day, the Templars are winning with the Assassins playing catch-up.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', when the Hylians caught wind that the ancient evil Ganon was on the verge of waking up, their solution was to try to dig up the {{magitek}} superweapons that had defeated him 10,000 years prior. Unfortunately, they didn't fully understand how to control the ancient devices, resulting in Ganon simply hijacking them and [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turning them against their masters]], destroying most vestiges of civilization as a result.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has this pop up from time to time, usually centered on Titan technology. The most prominent example was Garrosh Hellscream excavating in Pandaria to find the heart of an Old God and the ensuing battle to stop him before he could completely master its power.
** This turned up again in ''Warlords of Draenor'', where the ogre Gorian Empire was scouring Draenor for titan artifacts and relics of past civilizations to give them more of an advantage, while the Alliance and Horde competed for their own artifact on an old ogre island. As it turns out, the ogre empire was already so diminished that none of it mattered, and the most powerful artifact they found was hijacked by one of their own who they led to betraying them. Meanwhile, the Alliance and Horde competition ended up largely irrelevant as its existence to begin with was mostly an ExcusePlot for a [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] zone.
* In the ''Videogame/{{Borderlands}}'' setting, this is part of the reason why so many people are on [[DeathWorld Pandora]]. Everyone is racing for control over the legendary Vaults, which hold various [[{{Precursors}} Eridian]] secrets, and in all of the games, the players are "Vault Hunters" who are trying to seize the priceless alien ruins. The Atlas corporation, in particular, owes much of its superiority to capturing and repurposing Eridian technology. Later on, the Hyperion corporation rises to prominence by exploiting the opening of a Vault to harvest the extremely valuable element Eridium, which began growing on Pandora after the events of the first game. The second game even has an outright arms race, as [[BigBad Handsome Jack]] is racing to unlock one particular Vault which houses [[{{Kaiju}} an ancient Eridian superweapon known as The Warrior]].
* This is all over the place in ''VideoGame/SeriousSam''. It's made clear in the intro videos alone that Earth is only holding out against Mental thanks to caches of Sirian technology scattered across the world. No fewer than four ancient cultures (Pre-Helenistic Egypt, proto-Babylon, pre-Columbian Aztec, and (oddly) Harold of Saxony-era England) had access to working Sirian ships, teleporters, and radios, though only the Egyptians and English managed to maintain them. The Egyptians even had a working time machine, which still functioned [[VideoGame/SeriousSam3BFE in the year 2260]]. Sirian tech wound up being the only way the UN could successfully send explorer ships out amongst other star systems, too, though that may have been what [[NiceJobBreakingItHero attracted Mental's attention in the first place]].
* Likewise, this tends to be all over the place in VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}, with the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis']] discoveries ranging from [[{{Ghostapo}} supernatural]] to [[LostTechnology ancient]] [[StupidJetpackHitler tech-based discoveries.]] In the series reboot, VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, the BigBad, Deathshead manages to allow them to win the war through reversed engineered LostTechnology.
** Technically, it's something of an aversion, since most of the tomb raiding is done by the Nazis. The Allies simply send BJ Blazkowicz in and a few hours and hundreds of Nazi corpse's later, the Reich is down one super weapon. Downplayed in VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder; [[spoiler:Set reveals the Da'at Yichud eventually decided to share their AntiGravity technology with the Allies, but by that point the Nazis had already developed nukes, so it was a curb-stomp battle and the anti-gravity (and America) quickly fell into Nazi hands.]]
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', technology from the Protheans, the civilization that ruled the galaxy 50,000 years before the present day, is in massive demand and every galactic civilization tries to get as much as they possibly can. Once the Reapers are revealed, collecting ''their'' technology (which is actually what the Protheans' tech was based on) becomes even more important due to the need to find effective ways to fight them, though as Reaper tech is designed to have the side effect of BrainWashing anyone who gets near it into worshiping the Reapers it's a double-edged sword.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': The Orokin left behind many artifacts which three of the major factions in the setting are all hunting for to get an upper hand in the conflict. [[PlayerCharacter The Tenno]] in particular are basing a lot of their gear on what they've used during [[GreatOffscreenWar the Old War]]; their game-changing technologies such as [[JetPack archwings]] (the first one only) and [[CoolSpaceship railjacks]] are earned respectively through excavation missions and and scavenging parts scattered around the Origin System, with the upgrades for the latter gained by repairing wreckage rewarded from railjack missions.

* The RTS flash game ''VideoGame/{{Relic Of War}}'' is based around this, with the Nazis discovering an ancient artifact and using it for taking an advantage in an alternative timeline WWII developing new technologies (the allies do the same later on)

** In the Infernal sourcebook, [[{{Bishounen}} Captain Gyrfalcon]] is seen with possession of [[FantasticNuke Thousand-Forged Dragon]]. He's understandably proud of himself.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe, this is often the case when different factions in the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Imperium of Man]] (especially the [[MachineCult Adeptus Mechanicus]]) end up fighting each other, as they've become technologically backwards and most of their best technology is either relics they've dug up (or stolen from each other) or created by the few xenos they haven't killed on sight. The Mechanicus also bans innovation as heresy against the ancients, forcing them to obtain all tech from archaeological relics built during the [[AndManGrewProud Dark Age of Technology]].

* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': A one-sided version. Ruins of the Metal World dot the landscape, but most of the artifacts within are either useless or junk--some of the most valuable things you can scavenge are old coffee mugs. The Eclipse cult, however, have somehow found a way to revive ancient machines buried beneath the ground, different from the normal MachineLifeforms that form a part of the world's ecosystem. These strange machines are not only exceedingly deadly on their own, but they can corrupt other machines to serve them. Higher-ranking eclipse often have scavenged guns collected from those machines. As it turns out, [[spoiler:these are the machines that originally destroyed the world, consuming biomass to make more of themselves. After every living thing was dead, they went into hibernation, and a terraforming AI named GAIA was able to calculate the shutdown codes to put them down for good, then rebuild the biosphere from scratch. But an OutsideContextProblem managed to hack GAIA, driving her subroutines sapient and turning them into rogue gods; HADES has recruited the Eclipse to build an army to destroy the world again, while HAPHAESTUS overclocked machine production to slaughter the human race into submission]].

** A non-military version in the ''Brave New World'' ExpansionPack to ''V''. After the discovery of Archaeology, you can start training Archaeologist units who can excavate antiquity sites for cultural artifacts that boost your Tourism rating. There are also hidden antiquity sites that are only visible to players who have maxed out the Exploration policy tree. These aren't any better than the regular sites, but, being the only one who can see and excavate them can give a huge advantage to somone going for a cultural victory. Also, other civs get annoyed when you start excavating within their borders, especially since excavating a site on an improved tile destroys the improvement.

** Of course, it's something of an aversion in that this is unique to the Nazis. The Allies simply send BJ Blazkowicz in and a few hours and hundreds of Nazi corpse's later, the Reich is down one super weapon. Played straight with VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder, in that [[spoiler:Set did say that some of their Ancient Technology was gifted to the Allies, however, by that point, the Nazis had already developed nukes, so it wound up being moot.]]

* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': A one-sided version. Ruins of the Metal World dot the landscape, but most of the artifacts within are either useless or junk--some of the most valuable things you can scavenge are old coffee mugs. The Eclipse cult, however, have somehow found a way to revive ancient machines buried beneath the ground, different from the normal MachineLifeforms that form a part of the world's ecosystem. These strange machines are not only exceedingly deadly on their own, but they can corrupt other machines to serve them. Higher-ranking eclipse often have scavenged guns collected from those machines. As it turns out, [[spoiler:these are the machines that originally destroyed the world, consuming biomass to make more of themselves. After every living thing was dead, they went into hibernation, and a terraforming AI named GAIA was able to calculate the shutdown codes to put them down for good, then rebuild the biosphere from scratch. But now one of her subroutines, HADES, has gone rogue, and has recruited the Eclipse to build an army to destroy the world again]].